It's a wonderful dictionary, worth every cent, but it's really not for beginners. You would find it positively confusing. You'd be much better to start off with a smaller dictionary (Cassell's is good), resorting to the large Lewis & Short dictionary online at Perseus if you really need extra assistance, until you are confident.

Of course, there's no harm in having it if you like to have huge heavy lovely reference books on the shelf, but you probably won't use it much (and probably shouldn't) for a year or two.

I bought it in November and it is a really interesting resource. I do agree with Ulpianus though. You should not buy this unless you are positively certain that you are going to pursue a major interest in Latin. The OLD shows a great deal of etymology for each word and the many variant forms used by different authors, along with sample sentences so you can see how each word is used. Smaller dictionaries will usually have these things, just not to as great a degree (and for a lot cheaper).

The Publisher's Notice states that it is intended to cover "classical Latin from its beginnings to the end of the second century A.D." Thus, as I have occasionally noticed, it lacks certain words that even small dictionaries have, in its zealousy to stay within the confines of classical Latin. This makes it useful for people who want to stay in classical, but unsatisfactory for students of medieval or ecclesiastical. I have on occasion been unable to find a word or two and I am not sure if this is because they were outside the time frame or if the dictionary had missed them entirely, which is a possibility since there is a list of words that were only added in later editions.

fisher99: Yes, I have it. I thought that it was worth the price, but I like to have reference books within reach of my grubby mitts when curiosity comes calling.

Ulpianus: Despite being a beginner, I don’t find it confusing; I appreciate its format. It shares a shelf in my office with the Compact OED, various language dictionaries, and numerous atlases. I do use these other books more often than the OLD, though.

I have an OLD, but I agree with everyone else, that it's not for anyone but professionals. You don't need a dictionary with more than 1,000 words until you've mastered the most common 1,000 words. It's like a non-native English speaker buying an Oxford English Dictionary. I'm sure you'll find no one, in any field, with an OLD who doesn't use his tiny pocket-sized Cassel's or Collin's dictionary twice as much.